This will sound crazy, but...should I tell my girlfriend, the love of my life, that I was abducted by aliens? It happened a long time ago, and I have no proof -- just my own recollection. Yes, it could've been a dream, but even so, it changed how I see things and opened me up to new possibilities. My girlfriend is a schoolteacher and probably wouldn't believe me. Whether she'd still stay with me, I don't know. I want to be completely honest with her. Is that crazy?

--UFO-napped

Strange how nobody ever manages to shoot video when there's an alien spaceship in the vicinity -- perhaps because they're too busy recording that guy, two traffic lanes over, who's picking his nose.

Like you, science historian and Skeptic magazine founder Michael Shermer felt like he had a little meet-'n'-greet with some outer space dudes. However, he realized that his supposed abduction was just the effects of "sleep deprivation and physical exhaustion" because he had just cycled 83 straight hours in a bike-athlon. This -- mixed with a "distant memory" of a TV episode about aliens taking over the earth -- made for what Shermer calls "nothing more than a bizarre hallucination."

Shermer notes that UFOs and alien abductions are "1. unaccepted by most people in astronomy, exobiology" and SETI (the search for extraterrestrial intelligence), "2. extremely unlikely (although not logically impossible), and 3. ... largely based on anecdotal and uncorroborated evidence."

However, Shermer explains, "the human capacity for self-delusion is boundless, and the effects of belief are overpowering" -- leading many people to swear that they actually did go on a ride with the little green men. As "evidence," they'll tell you they have really vivid "memories" -- of, say, the aliens bickering: "Just put him in the trunk of your flying saucer. Nah, got all my intergalactic soccer gear in there. You take him!"

But such "memories" are probably due to what memory researcher Elizabeth Loftus and her colleagues call "imagination inflation." This describes how repeatedly imagining an experience can, over time, lead us to forget that the particular event -- "heyyy, how 'bout them aliens!" -- came out of our imagination or a dream. We can start to believe it really happened.

For example, Loftus and her colleagues told research participants that a dream they'd revealed to the researchers probably meant that they'd had an upsetting experience before the age of 3, "like being bullied by an older child." The participants insisted that they didn't recall anything like that. Yet, about two weeks later, many reported experiencing the bullying they were simply told about -- even offering details on how they were supposedly oppressed by some other 3-year-old.

This makes sense, considering cognitive psychologist Robert Bjork's finding that "using one's memory shapes memory" -- meaning that the more we recall something the bigger and stronger it grows in our memory. Also, in recalling some event -- for ourselves or others -- we have a tendency to "decorate," adding details that can easily get merged into the particular "memory." We quickly forget that we just threw them in to, oh, put on a good show at the alien abductee party because we were feeling all "my tinfoil hat is so last season."

Also consider "cognitive dissonance" -- the discomfort from simultaneously holding two opposing beliefs, like thinking that your worldview was transformed by UFOs while also thinking that it's stupid to believe in UFOs. We tend to smooth out the clash by going with whichever belief works best for our ego. So, in your case, to continue believing that you're intelligent and also not cockadoody in the head, you tell yourself that your memory of your special vacay with the 00100010111 family has to be real.

As for what to tell your girlfriend, what counts is that you had these insights -- not the sense that a space alien opened your skull up with some high-tech can opener and dumped them in. If you mention the alien thing at all, explain it in light of the science on how our memory likes to dabble in fiction writing.

While you're at it, give yourself credit for your insights. It may help to understand our brain's "default mode" processing. Our mind doesn't just turn off when we take a break from directed, focused thinking (like reading, studying, or pondering something). Wider neural networks take over and do subconscious background processing -- gnawing on ideas and problems we've been working on. This can make insights seem like they came out of nowhere. But chances are, yours are a product of your mind and your real-life experience -- an explanation that, sadly, lacks the panache of claiming the space dudes were going to use the anal probe on you but weren't sure whether you could afford the copay.

Comments

I believe in UFOs, and I have a great aunt and an aunt -- both deceased -- who have actually seen them. However, out of the books I've read on abductions, I'm still not sure whether to believe them. It's one of those things that I would have to experience personally to truly believe.

The LW is probably better off not going on about it to his SO.

mpetrie98
at December 20, 2016 8:08 PM

I'm telling you people crop circles are alien teenagers just fucking with us

I think very few people know this but the severely mentally ill often have psychotic breaks that involve aliens taking over their stalking them and taking over their bodies and minds. It's quite terrifying for them because they feel their skin is getting ripped off and probed.

I suspect regular people suffer from the same delusions. The brain is aa weird thing. My severely mentally ill friends though tend to suffer more from god/satan/demons type of psychosis. I've also had a few of the atheists of them tell me of the beautiful religious experiences they have had during psychotic breaks and they understand why people firmly believe in God.

Ppen
at December 21, 2016 1:45 AM

LW, explain even the most minor event in your abduction by observing the physics and see what happens. How long did you travel? What acceleration? What circulated air? What makes you think aliens breathe N2/O2 air? What was the lighting like? What makes you think visible light was necessary? What makes you think flickering light was desirable? At any point, did the platform you were abducted in turn? Do you know why there is an artifical horizon instrument in an airplane? Do you recognize personal conviction can be measured by a polygraph, but not actual events?

Is there any difference between your "new possibilities" and anything Ray Bradbury has already written?

Whether this has made you a better person might be viewed by others as a significant hint at unreliability. What else might you believe without objective evidence?

Sounds like a hypnagogic hallucination to me. This is a sensory experience that occurs as the brain is transitioning between sleep and awake states. I experienced them a lot as a young adult, and it used to freak me out until someone mentioned that phrase to me and I read up on it. A commonly reported experience is the feeling of being abducted and made to lay on a table or surface which then causes paralysis. When you are asleep, the portions of your brain that handle voluntary muscle control are disconnected (or are supposed to be) from the motor nerves, so that you don't actually do the things that you dream of doing. When you are waking up, it is possible to be alert, but those parts of your brain haven't switched back to awake mode yet and still aren't re-connected with the motor nerves, and so you experience that as paralysis. Couple that with the fact that all of the dream material hasn't been purged yet, and you get alien abduction (among other things).

And of course, there's a social component to all of this. No one dreamed of alien abduction before the concept of space travel entered the public consciousness. UFOs are also a result of this era; before you had them, you had ghost airplanes and cars. Before those were invented, you had ghost trains; before that, ghost horse riders and carriages, etc.

Cousin Dave
at December 21, 2016 6:48 AM

A lot of people believe there is some guy-in-the-sky who sees all and controls all...so why can't there be alien abductions? There's more evidence of UFOs then there is of "God".

stubeedoo
at December 21, 2016 10:18 AM

"Evidence" for UFOs, stubeedoo? Do you means those fuzzy photos taken from so far away that Sasquatch and the Loch Ness Monster themselves both look at them and say, "Nah, bro"? Or are you taking about eyewitness testimony from pilots and astronauts? Eyewitness testimony is notoriously unreliable. One could probably fill the Rose Bowl with all the lawyers and judges who have heard two different eyewitness to the same event swear that they saw different things.

I don't believe UFO visitations to Earth in our time, stubeedoo. I believe in Jesus. For real, that guy put a sweet lowrider on my cousin's Chevy!

Blue Crab
at December 21, 2016 3:10 PM

"I think very few people know this but the severely mentally ill often have psychotic breaks that involve aliens taking over their stalking them and taking over their bodies and minds."

It turned out they were right after all. Snowden proved to us that NSA was listening and stalking us 24/7.

The "severely mentally ill" were simply ahead of time and told us the truth, which the rest of us simply ignored and missed. The "severely mentally ill" are like Jesus, Pythagoras, Darwin, Marx, Copernicus, Gogh...

They all had miserable lives while they were alive as the rest of the stupid majority treated them as the "severely mentally ill". But they turned out to be right after all centuries later.

Let's not judge "severely mentally ill".

chang cho
at December 21, 2016 5:00 PM

Honestly though, is the though of people capable of a reliable form of space travel checking us out really all that odd?

Makes you wonder what concurrent neolithic tribes with no contact to the modern world think when they hear stories from similar tribes that are visited by anthropologists

In the interest of complete honesty I say go for it. Hold nothing back. Your dreams, your fears, your imaginary friends, your love affair with heroin, the thrill you get from armed robbery, your summer hitchhiking through Texas and your co-living co-working arrangement with that family of skin-suit-wearing cannibals, and of course your previous lovers. Share all of it.

Hold nothing back and neither will she.

Gog_Magog_Carpet_Reclaimers
at December 23, 2016 9:52 AM

@luj "Honestly though, is the though of people capable of a reliable form of space travel checking us out really all that odd?"

The chance that alien intelligent life exists is actually very high, given our current knowledge of physics and of the universe etc. However, there is no known evidence to date of us having found any, nor any having visited us. We haven't been looking very long though.

Lobster
at December 23, 2016 11:28 AM

"We haven't been looking very long though."

Our error has been looking to the stars when we should be drilling into the Earth's hollow core and overthrowing the Lava People.

Gog_Magog_Carpet_Reclaimers
at December 23, 2016 12:30 PM

My grandpa didn't believe in flying saucers until he tripped a waitress.

Patrick
at December 23, 2016 4:58 PM

This will sound crazy, but...should I tell my girlfriend, the love of my life, that I was abducted by aliens? . . . My girlfriend is a schoolteacher and probably wouldn't believe me.

You never know. After you tell her that you were abducted by aliens, she may not only believe you but be relieved, confiding in you that she is an alien.

JD
at December 24, 2016 11:44 AM

Good point JD. Could be the aliens have a biological vector to remove the memories but until it takes full effect they plant a companion to watch them and make sure they dont talk about it

Well, the advice the guy sought was whether to tell his girlfriend about the "experience"---not to be told by Amy that it didn't happen.

....and of course it didn't, but that wasn't the question.

He should absolutely tell her, because she needs to know her boyfriend is susceptible to such fantasies. This kind of omission is just as bad as the kids thing a couple of articles ago.

Treadwell
at December 31, 2016 2:53 PM

LW needs to read psychiatrist John Mack's book "Abduction", it can offer some good insights. Mack's clients were referred to him bother other doctors who were stumped by the stories they were being told. Mack would use regression therapy to allow these people to integrate their experiences into their lives, not try to invalidate them. The experiences they had were varied, and just the shear numbers of them would suggest that perhaps one person in forty has gone through this.
The reason we don't remember is that strong post-hypnotic suggestions block our memories. Since so many people are being abducted, of course it becomes impossible to make sure every abductee gets the strongest memory block.
Where things get really weird is when deep hypnosis reveals the that an abduction not only did NOT occur, but that the memory of it masks secret mind control projects being carried out by our own taxpayer-funded government.
I met a woman years ago who told me that she'd had an abduction experience, which led her to follow up with her own research. She made clear that her experience was pretty unpleasant, but she didn't go into details. If I'd read Mack's book before that, I could have related to her a lot better than I did. I have no idea where she is today, prolly taken away to another dimension.

jefe
at January 3, 2017 1:22 PM

Oh, and there's a reason people aren't getting videos of UFOs on their cell phones: Cloaking is being used to hide the buggers. I saw one cellphone video of a 'cloud' bouncing and rolling across the San Francisco skyline, oblivious to the actual wind direction or what other real clouds were doing.